Chapter 7: Blood Tome

Fang woke up the next day to a strange site, a female humanoid creature with black scales stared at him. The creature was at least a head taller than his mother but strangely it did not seem mature instead it gave the feeling of an enlarged teen.

She wore no clothes and didn’t seem to mean him any harm regardless of her intentions whatever they may be, Fang could not just ignore her presence.

“Mother said not to allow anyone in… Who are you and what are you doing here?” The creature ignored his presence and continued to stare at him almost in wonder.

“Boy, you are not afraid? Not even a bit?” She carried a pressure around her similar to that of the dragon he faced when he was a gladiator but regardless he would not be afraid.

“No.”

The large girl seemed surprised by his answer and laughed.

“That must be an effect of the treasure. Taking it will be easy but I'm going to need at least three days to prepare. That elf was somewhat threatening but if my spell works it won't matter. Well then boy I'll see you in three days then we'll see what ends up happening to you.”

Saying that the larg girl disappeared without a trace. Fang was left confused by what had just happened but didn’t dwell on it as there was nothing he could do. Going down to the kitchen he made himself a simple breakfast.

After five hours his mother and father arrived and began to give him a rough outline of what happened and asked for his explanation of the events. Fang did not omit any details starting from the time he was swinging his sword to the time the guard knocked him unconscious. His mother looked at him perplexed as to why he chose to swing his sword instead of making friends but chose to stay quiet.

“Fang Fae this is what I warned you about, I told you that if you were to get into trouble then you should yell and close your eyes. You did not listen tell me why.”

Fang thought about it but didn’t really have an answer for his mother. “... I never thought I was in trouble… Because the man had no intention to kill me my life wasn’t in danger.”

Both Luna and Tal were surprised by Fang’s answer and look at him in confusion. Finally Luna broke from her daze and spoke to Fang.

“Trouble can be anything from someone trying to hurt you to you being in an uncomfortable situation. Next time do not try to fight an opponent you have no chance against. Other than that I have two things for you and tomorrow we start your education.”

Luna waved her hand and two books materialized. One of the books was pure white with a gold lock on the front of the book with various puzzle like pieces, the second book was an ordinary brown covered book. These were the first books he had seen for the last two years, as the last time his mother had shown him a book was when he was three.

“The white one is blank and can be used for anything it has a pattern lock made by your father without the right combination it won’t open. Next is the brown one this has the basic information regarding mana and ki.”

Taking the two books Fang was excited as he would be able to prepare a magic tome, what he lacked the most right now was mana control and sense but with the brown book he would hopefully solve that issue. The magic tome would become his greatest weapon and allow him to have a better way of fighting.

One thing he was wondering however was what ki could be. In his past life it was never mentioned and considering the fact that it came in the introductory for mana Fang thought that it might be what he was missing from his ability to sense mana.

“Thank you mother, father thank you for the sword.”

Tal hearing his son thank him for the sword that almost got him and the kingdom killed could only sigh warily.

“Son next time just give up on the sword I can make one of those without too much issue.” Without any delay Fang answered his father.

“No. What given to me is mine and will always be mine… I might give up something to mother but no one else.”

Hearing her son declare with such resolution and stubbornness for something surprised her and she was getting ready to lecture her son and show him that somethings weren’t worth the trouble, but that was all blown away when he said that she was the exception.

She only just resisted the urge to pounce on her son and shower him with love for the next couple of years. Instead she did the only thing that would allow her to keep her dignity as a good mother and wife in front of the two.

“Fang your father has some point but this time you did good and fought off an adversary with courage and ziel. For now go into your room and finish your ten days of punishment. Your lectures will begin after that instead of tomorrow.”

“Yes mother.”

Having his lessons pushed back was a reasonable punishment and the talk about courage was to satisfy her husband and his dwarven nature that way she would not seem a liniment or abnormally harsh to either.

Luna quickly ran out and went to find Liz to celebrate. Fang returned to his room and opened up the brown book to begin reading it and start his path to becoming strong in order to fulfill his goal of being a great thief. However after looking at the book it was like a bucket of cold water was dropped on him.

He knew how to read due to his mother occasionally reading him simple stories but because of that he did not know any complicated forms of literature. Feeling dejected he continued to stare and try to make sense of the book but it was something that would either take a long time or outright impossible without his mother’s help.

“I'm going to need assistance for this, the only thing to do now is make a blood tome with the blank book. The only thing I'm missing is a creature and a small amount of mana to use the blood rites spell. That dragon would have made a great spell tome.”

Without anything to do he took out the blank book and a sharp piece of metal to cut himself with in order to make the blood tome. A blood tome was only slightly different than a regular tome as it mainly used blood as it’s catalysts rather than mana.

With this even if he could not sense mana he would use the creature he sacrificed and his connection to it as a medium.

The other useful perk of this method of creating a tome was that it would have to layers of locks making it so that instead of killing a creature it would be sealed and turned obedient. cutting his finger with the sharp piece of metal Fang began drawing arrays one the tome.

Covering the front, back, and spine of the book took more than five hours and a substantial amount of blood that left him feeling light headed. Once finished however he had nothing to do but continue his sword practice in order to gain full control over his body.

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Bahamut observed the strange boy who showed no fear towards her and the one’s who lived in the same hose as him. There was a decent warrior and the blood elf. Regardless she did not believe that they would be able to sense or stop her spell when activated.

Her spell was two fold, one part of it would make the boy her devout companion the other would damage the boy’s soul but get her the ancient treasure.

She believed that making him a companion would compensate to the damage caused on his soul as he would eventually heal and in her company he could at least grow to the level of a good warrior. But in her mind she knew that these were all superficial reasons.

During her observation she noticed that he began a weird ritual with a book and his own blood. She did not recognize any of the strange arrays on the book or their purpose.

Regardless it could not pose a threat to her as he was neither warrior or magician yet and anything he did was either useless or ineffective.

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Tal had a couple of days off from being at the palace and decided to check in on his son while his wife was away. He was curious as to how his son was training in the sword arts when no one had ever shown him how even as a genius as his wife called him it would be impossible to learn something you had never been exposed to.

This would be his son’s second day of being in his room so Tal figured that he should go and speak to him. Walking to his son’s room it had a strange smell of blood but Tal ignored it thinking that it would be something that lingered from his wife’s massacre.

“Fang I'm coming in.”

Not waiting for a response Tal walked in on his son shirtlessly swinging his sword.

“Your form is good but you lack strength behind your blows.”

Tal immediately gave his opinion and sighed a little on the inside his son showed some promise of growing more muscular than an elf but it didn’t seem like he would have the full raw bulk and strength of a dwarf.

“I’m trying to better my movements and control instead of strength.”

Tal was surprised by his son’s answer but quickly put on the face of a General looking at a soldier.

“Fang Fae you have the correct idea for now and developing your strength can come later but you should not ignore it entirely as a dwarven man your strength and build will showcase your ability.”

Fang tilted his head to one side.

“Mother told me that I was an elf? Am I a dwarf?”

Tal wanted to smack his head against the wall for never realizing that his son had no concept of different races or the pride each individual race carried.

“Your half elf and half dwarf and as such you must carry the pride of both sides so while you train in your control also train in strength for this is should have made you a more appropriate weapon like an axe or hammer.”

Thinking about it it was odd for a dwarf to use a sword other than a claymore so Tal decided to get his son something more suitable.

“Anyway other than that you need to know when to relinquish some things and when to stubbornly hold on. I won't say to give up your possessions but some that you don't mind losing you will have to give away at some point or relinquish them to avoid trouble… Although that should never be a problem in this kingdom for you.”

Seeing his son was going down the path of the warrior instead of a mage, Tal was laughing on the inside thinking that he would be the one to train him and not his wife.

“Son can you sense mana?” Fang quickly shook his head.

“Not yet.” Tal looked at his son smiling.

“That's right it should be another half year or so before we are able to determine whether or not you will be able to sense mana.”

Tal was a dwarf and his son was half in the history of the dwarven people there were only a handful of them who could full sense and control mana the rest relied on ki.

“Then even if you can’t we will train you in ki forming. For now continue your swings and I will watch you from here for a while.”

His son seemed satisfied and continued swinging his sword and taking different stances that Tal had never seen, some of these were optimized for someone with a shorter stature. After an hour Tal Quickly left and began replicating the movements he saw.

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On the third day Bahamut was finished with her spell and ready to take the treasure. She appeared once more in front of the odd boy but this time it was not in her humanoid form but in a fully dragonic state.

Her limbs were as thick as tree trunks and her body destroyed the room they were in. Despite this when she looked at the boy he was as calm as a still river.

“Boy do you not fear me?”

The boy picked up his sword and the strange book he had scribbled on with his blood.

“No.”

Seeing that she would have an interesting companion from now on Bahamut was slightly pleased.

“Boy you have something I want and need and I will take it but I will compensate you for it, but it will leave you robbed of your freedom. Boy what is your name?”

As she spoke she activated her spell encircling both of them in a dome of spell arrays and black smoke. When she took another glance at the boy she shook from fright at the killing intent that came from the boy.

“Fang Fae… No one will ever take anything from me.”

As his words left his mouth a black coat that seemed to me made of the boy’s, Fang Fae’s, killing intent appeared around him.

(Author's Note/rant/ thoughts: so for an actual note portion the main will not be a small build person with a weak looking body he just ages slower due to his elf blood so he's smaller then average from Liz's point of view as a human. For a small rant I did do one a day like I had said so I will try to write a second one and get the encounter between Bahamut and Fang over and concluded. The reason I slowed is because well previous reasons. Also anyone who has any thoughts or a good secession feel free to send me a message or leave a comment I would be greatful. On a fine note I am writing a second story but will update it less as my atention is on this one. It's Broken One's new Life, it's in first person perspective and I'm not entirely sure on how to do that right so some suport on that one would be great. And thank you for reading.)

:)